This morning, at 8 a.m. mind you, Mikaela had her first exposure to the sound booth! We first had a tympanogram performed. This tests the functioning of the eardrum. Making sure they are moving as they should - no fluid or whatever hindering the movement. All good.
Then to the booth we went. This test consisted of putting a tube with a padded tip into her ear - much like a foamy earplug. Then the audiologist would play tones at various decibels and pitches to see if she would look up to the toy doggie that would light up and move. They were mounted up in the corners of the booth- right and left respectively corresponding to the ear to which the tone was played. First, Kathy would play the tone and move the toy at about the same time so Mikaela could get the hang of what was "supposed" to happen. Then she would play the tone and wait for Mikaela to look towards the dog and then she would "reward" Mikaela with making the toy light and move.
The results are actually much closer in both ears than I previously thought. The left ear has and average of about 5 decibels less loss across most frequencies than the right. Both ears drop off dramatically as the pitch increases. In the lowest pitches (about 500 Hz) she actually has a moderate loss but both ears do drop off all the way to profound at the highest pitches. I think like 110 or 115 decibel loss at 4000 Hz.
The next test measured the ear canal itself. Here is the example Kathy gave me as to why the shape of the ear canal makes a difference to the way the hearing aids perform. If you can imagine blowing into various shaped glass bottles with different length and width necks. If you blew with the same force and amount, the sounds would have different pitches in each bottle. That is the same with our ear canals. If the same sound travels in, but the ear canal is very short and wide, it may sound different than the same sound into a long narrow ear canal. The hearing aids were adjusted to make sure Mikaela's shape is taken into account.
After an adjustment to the feedback as well, we went back in the booth with the hearing aids in to see what Mikaela might be hearing when she is aided. Again, the hearing is better at the lower frequencies. I don't remember exactly, but in the lower pitches, she has maybe a 25 decibel loss. As the pitch goes up, the hearing drops off. I think the last reading she got was 75 decibel loss. I can't remember at which pitch she obtained this reading. Regardless, she definitely is out of the "speech banana" at those higher pitches. Once I get the actual report, I will share.
To sum up....what does this all mean??? Good question! :-) It means - depending on what we want for Mikaela - there are still many options open to her. If we kept her in hearing aids, she definitely would miss sounds/speech at the higher frequencies. This doesn't mean there aren't children out there with a similar loss making it work. If we choose to work towards this, she could still have a mainstream education with the help of an interpreter in her classes. This route would also mean a lot of one -on-one instruction to make sure she isn't missing too much. Remember, the "normal hearing child" misses as much as 30% of what is said in the classroom. This appeals to me because I am not a fan of surgery unless it's a life saving decision.
Or we stay on the Cochlear Implant track which is not a perfect guarantee, but if all goes well, after extensive therapy, she would be at a mild hearing loss and wouldn't need the interpreter and still be mainstream. With this technology, there is a potential to hear a lot more of the world. I'm sure you know what the research states...if you don't and want to know more, please do not hesitate to call me or email me. I love talking about this and find not too many people are interested in learning about it. I suppose they don't have the need like I do.
Such a difficult decision for me. Many of you may think it's easy. And it might be for you. I find it SO NOT easy! :-)
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